Anyone is free to do as they wish... I am not standing in the way of anyone who wants to write a Flex book. This is simply the path that I am taking.
In this day and age of self-publishing, of what relevance are traditional publishing houses? That's a good question. It's not because they print physical books anymore, that model has long since died. It's for other reasons. 1) Perception: stakeholders and managers still look upon traditional publishing houses as thought leaders, or at least responsive to tech market trends as opposed to developer fanbase trends. The perception is that the dog (market trends) wags the tail (developer adoption), but in many cases it's actually the tail which wags the dog. What's the same in either case is the dog and the tail, they are part of the same ecosystem. Self-published books sidestep this perception. So that you have only the tail, so to speak. All of which means that a self/community-published book needs to have an awful lot of buzz to wag the dog. In the case of O'Reilly, they are a publishing house and they're considered a thought leader in the tech space, which is why it would have been nice to have such a title. An O'Reilly book would have been as good as an endorsement of the continued viability of the tech, but that's merely the perception. In reality O'Reilly is not so much a thought leader as a thought promoter: they still respond to perceived market trends as much as everyone else. 2) Reach. Traditional publishing houses can guarantee books in brick-and-mortar stores and online marketplaces. The former is becoming less and less relevant, but the latter is key. No matter what self-publishing capabilities exist on Amazon and other online marketplaces, the distribution is fragmented. In the case of a major publishing house, brand recognition helps distribution and sales. And increased sales means increased reach. That's not to say that self-publishing cannot do the same, but it takes more work and more buzz. 3) Infrastructure. This one is key. Many people do not realize it, but the resources a publishing house brings to the table are not only about graphic design and distribution. They have full-time staff editors with literary qualifications to ensure that the book itself is well written with no glaring typos and grammatical mistakes. Having been through the publishing process on several occasions, I can emphatically say that I am eternally grateful for editors who had my back. The tech editor, usually chosen by the author, verifies the quality of the technical aspects of the book. But it takes a literary editor to ensure that the book as a whole is well-written. We are so used to well-written books that all you have to do is read a few reviews of books from lesser publishing houses which basically exist to rubber-stamp self-published works, and you can feel the heat from the flames in the reviews: it doesn't matter how engaging the material, but if the grammar is sloppy and the text is rife with uncaught typos, the book will tank. Not to mention that they have access to legal resources that a self-publisher would not have or would be a real pain to do oneself. When I write an Apache book, I don't have to worry a whit about copyright or trademark issues: the publisher deals directly with the trademark suits at Apache, Adobe or anyone else referenced in the book. I can use the words "Apache Flex" in the book title without getting into long and frustrating conversations with Apache's legal department. It's already taken care of, because chances are that that publishing house already has a few Apache-related books under its belt and the process becomes automatic. One less headache for the author. I have enough headaches just writing the thing, I don't need to deal with that as well. 4) Remuneration. No one makes a living writing tech books, it's like working retail for the amount of hours one puts in. But at least there is a slight chance you'll get paid; there is an advance, and if you're lucky the publisher will break even and you may even see a dollar or two of royalties. If one is fortunate enough to be in a tech that's popular and you have a reputation, some authors can write several books a year and make it into a nice part time job. For most of us though, after working on a book for 500-1000 hours, it's nice to see a few dollars in the bank at the end of it all. With self-publishing, that's all up in the air. _______________________________________________________________________ Joseph Balderson, Flex & Flash Platform Developer :: http://joeflash.ca Author, Professional Flex 3 :: http://tinyurl.com/proflex3book Jeffry Houser wrote: > On 1/24/2014 5:10 PM, Justin Mclean wrote: >> Hi, >> >>> Well, I just heard back from O'Reilly. And unfortunately they're not >>> interested >>> in publishing an Apache Flex book of any kind >> While it would of been nice to have them as a publisher (print book, >> distribution, marketing etc etc) do we actually need a publisher? >> >> In this day and age it's easy enough to publish ebooks. > > I was thinking the same thing. The big benefit of having a > traditional publisher is that they can get 'paper copy' books into real > bookstores. > The real drawback of 'paper' books in real bookstores is that > programmers will never know this book existed. >
